Phoenix, the capital of Arizona

The capital on wheels

When Congress created the Arizona Territory in 1863, the new government had nowhere to sit. Its officials set up a provisional seat at Fort Whipple, an army post in the central highlands, and in 1864 moved a few miles to the new town of Prescott, where the first territorial legislature met. Prescott was a new mining town in the pine country of central Arizona.

Tucson, the oldest and largest town in the territory, wanted the capital, and in 1867 the Fourth Legislature voted to move it there. Prescott’s newspaper, the Weekly Miner, claimed the votes had been bought; the charge was never proven. Ten years later the legislature voted the capital back to Prescott, and the rivalry between the two towns went on.

Why Phoenix won

In 1889 the legislature found a way out: move the capital to neither rival. Phoenix was then a young farm town in the Salt River Valley, growing fast on irrigation canals built along the lines of ancient Hohokam ones. It sat roughly between Prescott and Tucson.

Lawmakers first met in Phoenix’s City Hall. In 1891 the land for a permanent capitol was donated, and the building was dedicated in February 1901. When Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, the government simply stayed where it was.

The copper-domed Capitol

The Arizona State Capitol was designed by the Texas architect James Riely Gordon, best known for his courthouses. Ground was broken in 1898, and the building cost about $136,000. Its dome is sheathed in copper, fitting for a territory built on copper mining, and is topped by a weathervane in the form of Winged Victory.

The building held the legislature until 1960 and the governor’s offices until 1974. Today the House and Senate meet in separate buildings in front of it, and the governor works in the Executive Tower behind it, linked to the old Capitol by a 1938 addition.

The historic building is now the Arizona Capitol Museum. Admission is free. The restored House and Senate chambers can be visited, and the museum displays artifacts from the battleship USS Arizona, sunk at Pearl Harbor in 1941, including pieces of its silver service.

Phoenix and Tucson today

Phoenix grew from a farm town of a few thousand people into a city of about 1.67 million in 2025, by far the largest in Arizona and the most populous state capital in the country. Tucson, the old rival, is second with about 548,000. Prescott, the first capital, is a much smaller city in the mountains about 100 miles north of Phoenix.

Visiting

The Arizona Capitol Museum is in downtown Phoenix. See the museum’s visitor page for hours and guided tours.